Australia can’t lead from behind on climate

It’s worth remembering that the 1991 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed by almost every country - including China, Australia and the US - committed to achieve: “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.

That’s pretty much the same as what the APEC Declaration commits to work towards … 16 years later.

The Kyoto Protocol was established precisely because the “aspirational” commitment in the 1991 framework failed to halt the spiralling rise in global greenhouse pollution. Binding targets are the way to cut emissions.

The weakness of the APEC Sydney Declaration is a sober reminder to Australians that being one of the two developed countries that refuses to ratify Kyoto carries a high cost.

Having refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, we only have observer status in the crucial post-2012 discussions in Bali in December this year.

The threats of dangerous climate change - more severe droughts, heatwaves, bushfires and cyclones - and the annual $3.8 billion loss of Australian business opportunities, because we cannot gain credits under the Kyoto Protocol’s carbon trading mechanisms, are strong reasons for Australia to reconsider its role as a Kyoto blocker.

If you don’t have a seat at the table, you don’t have a say in the outcome. It’s time for Australia to do the right thing by the rest of the world - and by future generations - and ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the post-2012 climate negotiations in December.